Western Digital unveils new 320GB portable drive

Western Digital Corp. launched the My Passport Essential portable storage hard drive product line, which it said includes support for Microsoft Vista and embedded search capabilities.



The company said that the drive offers full compatibility with Vista, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007, allowing simple transfers of business and personal data over from Windows PCs to My Passport Essential.

The 320GB disk drives are currently available for $199.99, said Western Digital. The My Passport Essential hard drive family also includes 160GB and 250GB models, the company added.

The new hard drive line will eventually replace the company's WD Passport drives, a spokesman said. He declined to elaborate further on the plans for the older line, except to say that it will coexist with the new drive "for months."

Weighing less than 5 oz., My Passport Essential draws its power from a PC USB port, which eliminates the need for a separate power adapter. The drive runs enhanced Windows-based synchronization and encryption software, enabling data to be transferred between home and work locations on PCs running Windows 2000, XP and Vista, as well as Mac OS X.